The Things You Remember

 I’m lying here on my floor trying to think of what to write. It’s the hottest part of the day, so not entirely conducive to thinking or writing, but I’m trying anyway. It’s been at least 35 degrees minimum since I got back here, with crazy amounts of humidity. My perm has never looked better. I don't know what I will do when hot season begins in a couple of weeks. If this isn’t hot, I really don’t know what is. The upside is that this season seems to coincide with mango season, so I’m eating pretty wild amounts of them.

So what to write about? Well, what have I been up to? Um, not much really aside from working and watching lots of tv shows and doing pilates – I’ve hurt by back a bit, again. The upside of this is that I’ve been able to justify getting a couple of Thai massages in the last wee while.

And now I am reminded of a memory from my trip to Burma last year...

At the jetty

We’d met these two lovely guys in Rangoon on our first day there, so when we returned a week later, we called and met up with one of them again. We went for a bit of a walk and sat at the main jetty of the Irawaddy River watching people and boats come and go, and couples stealing private moments together under cosy umbrellas. It was a particularly beautiful sunset and a wonderful way to spend our final evening in Burma, I can remember it vividly. After a while, our friend received a phone call from his friend, the other guy we’d met, asking if all of us (three in total) wanted to come and meet him for a massage. My friend and I looked at each other and thought, why not eh? So we packed into a beaten up old shit box of a taxi and raced through the crumbling city. We pulled up outside this decrepit wooden building, its facade was a rotting, disintegrating mess, it was at least four stories high and looked like it was about to fall down. By this time it was dark. Our friend pointed to the door and said, “It’s just in here”. Um, ok, not quite what we were expecting, but, I suppose this is ok. Maybe? My friend and I stepped inside. It was pitch black and there was an overwhelming stench of mould in the air; there was a steep, wide flight of stairs in front of us. We tentatively started up them, the damp floorboards creaking under our weight, with our new friend following us up. About half way up we exchanged glances that said “Oh no. What have we gotten ourselves into?” No one else in the world knew where we were, not even us, we spoke minimal Burmese, didn’t really know this guy, although did seem to be genuinely nice, and this building would have been well and truly condemned anywhere else in the world. Had we just made a totally rookie decision and were about to meet some horrible fate? There was not much we could do at this point other than keep going and see what happened. As we got to the top of the stairs, my heart was in my throat, I was thinking “well, I’ve really messed it up this time”.

Downtown Rangoon

Slowly, the sliding doors in front of us began to open letting out a slice of golden light. As they opened, they revealed the total opposite of whatever it was we were expecting: behind the doors was a beautiful, clean, brand spanking new waiting area. The couches were soft and plush, there was steaming green tea and tiny cups waiting for us on the ornate coffee table, and the reception desk shone with a gleaming golden finish, matching the golden walls and sumptuous carpet, and the beautifully dressed staff were attentive to our every need. We both let out a huge sigh of relief. After our tea, the three of us were ushered into a small room. Our other friend was already in there waiting for us. The room itself was rather unremarkable, but maintained the same welcoming feeling of the waiting area, it had the obligatory floor mattresses all massage places here have, and a gigantic flat screen tv on the wall, which most places don’t have. After some more tea and idle chat, in came four Burmese girls and the massage commenced. I can’t really remember much about the actual massage, other than that my girl kept burping and my friend kept giggling as she was so ticklish, and that we got pretty into trying to figure out what was going on in the soap opera that was being played on the tv (this was an ongoing game with us, Burmese and Thai soaps are so dramatic). 

After the massage and more tea, we tried to pay but were told under no uncertain terms that this was their treat and we were not to pay a cent. We headed back down the stairs which, this time, didn’t seem so dark, didn’t seem to creak and, strangely, the smell seemed to have disappeared. We clambered into another dilapidated taxi and the four of us headed to dinner. On the way, we asked what was with the whole dodgy-building thing, considering the inside was so beautiful. Turns out massage of any kind (sassy or no) was illegal in Burma, but our friends were important guys who were “in the know”. Why this is, I still haven’t been able to figure out. But I sure am glad I didn’t die in there.